2009 Chateau Montrose Saint-Estephe Grand Cru Classe 750 ml

Since the 2009 Château Montrose was bottled, THREE of the Wine Advocate’s most respected critics have weighed in with perfect scores: Robert Parker himself, Lisa Perrotti-Brown, and William Kelley. Kelley, a world-class palate and the publication’s current boss, scored the ‘09 just three years ago, lauding it as “a brilliant wine,” and “a benchmark for contemporary Montrose.”

This bottle stands with the First Growths in what Parker called “unquestionably the greatest Bordeaux vintage I have ever tasted.” But the price? It’s nowhere close to the $1,000+ of its peers.

Few wines celebrating their tenth birthday exhibit the stunning youthfulness of the 2009 Château Montrose. While we waited for the wine to decant, the room filled with exotic aromas of black cherry, currant, licorice, cigar box and star anise, to name a few. 

Glorious? Absolutely. The tannins are beginning to soften, but the wine’s still-powerful frame leads us to believe that we have a Claret with 50 years of life in front of it, assuming proper storage. There’s also that finish, one of the longest we can remember.

The wine’s striking power and longevity are primarily the product of Château Montrose’s extraordinary terroir, which many consider to be the best in Bordeaux’s northern Saint-Estèphe appellation. The 230-acre estate is riddled with gravel—Cabernet’s favorite soil—with some vineyard plots boasting gravel depths as great as six feet. The excellent drainage results in smaller grapes with intense concentration. 

Montrose’s quality and prestige may match that of Bordeaux’s five First Growths, but because it didn’t make the top cut at the time of the 1855 Classification, we can enjoy it at a price that amazes even us.